Wires are all wrapped as a whole with one continuous wrap, then wrapped in conduit, wrapped again with tape in one long wrap, and where the branches feed off, taped to the main trunk, then sprayed with rubber. The loop is the trailer tow harness I pulled off a CC truck and didn't want to cut it down and splice it. There are splices in this where wires were damaged and needed repaired. I REALLY don't want to pull this apart but I'm having second thoughts about it. Trying to keep the wires nice for aslong as I can given this truck will be swimming and dealing with mud also. I seen how Ford did it. They would either wrap the wires and leave the conduit open, or leave the wires open and wrap the conduit. I did both. Either way ford did it worked but I'm trying to do better. I can put "breather ports" in this if needed.
What do you all think?

 

Personally, I feel that it's just going to make repairing the harness a nightmare in the future. I suspect it might trap water in the harness. I could be wrong though. I'll be anxious to see the final product.

 

From my electrical experience, the wire itself will not give you any problems, even if it's laying in water. Most underground conduits accumulate water, and the wires lay in there with no problems for years.

The problem area is the connections/splices/plug-ins. They need to be sealed. With the wires laying in water underground, one nick in the insulation and it's over. Any splices in direct burial need to be sealed, the splice kits usually have the shrink wrap with the glue inside.

Same with your harness. I doubt any of the wiring will give you problems, the wrap would serve mainly to keep the wires together neatly, the covering to protect them from being hit or abraded. Any water that gets in there won't be a problem unless there is a splice that is not sealed. And your exposed wiring plugs can be a problem. The factory uses some sort of grease in there to try and keep the water out.

 

Cruiseomatic, your work is impressive, even to my standards. However, I agree that splices NEED to be sealed with double wall adhesive lined (aka Marine grade) heat shrink tube. Also, connections need to be sealed as well. In you can substitute a Weather pack or Metripack connector in place of a non-sealed stock one, it's a smart move to keep nasties out.

Last, with the wrapping work done, have you considered labeling each connector? Colored electrical tape, a label maker and clear heat shrink can give it that extra bit of professionalism on such a fine piece of work. Did it on my RX7's harness years ago.

 

Thanks. Well, After reading multiple posts on the subject and looking at how Ford did it at the factory, I stripped it all back to the wires. On the splices, I did use double wall marine grade heatshrink tubing on ALL splices. I also ripped about every weather proof factory connector I could from the boneyard. As far as labeling the connectors, I took pictures and its a obvious where it goes kind of thing. This truck is VERY simple for the most part.